Great White Throne (15 page)

“You will bow.” Don fired again, hitting the Mahdi’s other leg.

The Mahdi writhed on the ground in pain. Men rushed to him, as he managed to lean up on an elbow.
 

“You will die!” he shouted. He pulled something from his cloak. “DIE AND BURN, DAJJAL!”
 

He fell back to the ground, but he held his arm high, device in hand. Then he pressed his thumb down.

“FIVE,” SAID A voice over the intercom, filling the cavern.
 

Men started running. Aisha shouted in my mind,
fly!

“FOUR.”
 

My mind went to the machine’s jets. Azazel did not resist. The machine rumbled for launch.

“THREE.”
 

The machine took off, soaring up through the hole it had dug in the ground. As we burst out of the hole, I glimpsed a city laid waste. The other machines flew out of the hole just after mine.
 

TWO
, I guessed. I saw a speck on the west horizon. Azazel directed my sights to it. I didn’t know where to go, and in my indecision, Azazel seized the controls. We flew west like a bullet over land.

ONE
, I guessed, then
BOOM!

The explosion shook the air. Its force jerked the machine down, spinning toward the ground. As we regained balance and continued flight, I glanced back. A mushroom cloud billowed out of the earth like an erupting volcano. It swallowed what had been Tehran and everything around it.
 

We’d made it out.

Look!
thought Aisha, frantic.

In an empty spot of desert ahead of us, a missile flew out of the ground, soaring west.

We have to stop it
, I thought, locking the machine’s sights on the slender rocket.
 

We began closing on it, but slowly. The machine was already at its fastest speed. It calculated the time before we’d catch the missile.
93 seconds
, showed the machine’s screen.

Map
, I commanded.
Track approach.

A translucent map appeared before me. We were a green dot flying due west, heading straight at Jerusalem, following the red dot that was the missile just ahead. And we were too slow. The missile was going to hit the city seconds before we caught it.
 

Worse, other red dots were approaching from every angle. Six other green dots were in the area. Even if they were Don’s other machines, it didn’t seem like enough. The missiles outnumbered them four to one.

Abort!
Aisha thought.
Go into orbit, or go south. We won’t catch it. We have to get away.

We can’t let the city be destroyed
.
Naomi is in Don’s palace, just outside the city. She would die.
Then it hit me: my body was there, too. And Ronaldo’s.
 

Aisha:
You know we can’t stop them
.
And my body is in HERE! If we fly into the heart of the explosion I have no chance. Maybe Don’s palace will escape the worst of it.

She was right. I saw the Dead Sea ahead.
Trust. Wait.
Jerusalem was on the horizon. I had to save what I could. I had to trust God with the rest.
 

I made the machine veer hard south, aiming at the Dead Sea. Maybe the water would cushion the explosion. Maybe I could save Aisha.
 

Just before the machine plunged into the water, just before the missiles hit Jerusalem, just as I screamed out a last plea to God—the sky flashed.

Not a bomb. Not an explosion. Something bigger, brighter.
 

My mind ejected from the machine.

ALL SIGNS OF the machine, the Mahdi, and Aisha were gone. I was in Don’s control tower again. I staggered from my chair, my head spinning. The room was bright as daylight streamed in, but everything else was dark and quiet. No lights. No technology. No friends.

“What … what was that?” Alexi asked from the other side of the room, rubbing his bald head, looking as confused as I felt.
 

“We lost our connection,” Beatriz answered. “Had to be the nukes.”
 

“No, no! Of course not,” came Sven’s excited voice. I’d never expected to hear the Captain’s double-crossing technology agent again. “The President had anticipated all that. We were ready for the explosions.”

He and the others were gathering around a hulking man before a dark control panel. I did a quick count. Eleven of us in the room, but not Don.
 

“Where is the President?” Alexi asked.

No one answered at first. I thought of Naomi. I checked for her through my precept, but it was gone. I had to get out. I began inching toward the center of the room, where the elevator shaft was open.
 

“He’ll be fine,” said a deep, rumbling voice. It was the man at the control panel. “The Master will bring him here. But we’ve lost Babylon.”

“We lost all power,” Sven confirmed. “Once it’s back, I can reboot the system.”

I crouched by the open shaft and peered down. It was like a glass tube back to earth. There was a thin ladder stretching all the way down. I slid to my stomach and swung my leg over the edge. Quietly. Carefully. If I fell, I’d die.

“This doesn’t make sense,” Beatriz whined. “What about our generators? We can’t just lose power.”

My foot found a rung of the ladder.

“Whatever happened,” Sven continued, “it wiped out all our connections—to the satellites, to precepts, to people. There are no signs of electricity anywhere. It was like a giant electromagnetic bomb hit the earth.”

I took a step down. My hand gripped the ladder’s rail.

“He has started fighting back,” said the deep-voiced man. “He used the sun.”

“The sun?” Sven asked.

“What does that mean?” Beatriz sounded afraid.

I took another step down. Then another. Before ducking fully into the shaft, I glanced one last time at the control room.

The unknown man had seen me. He was staring at me, eyes slitted like the dragon’s. “The last battle is here,” he said, rising to his feet, stirring the shadows twisting around him. “No running now.”
 

Everyone turned to me. The man—the demon—charged.

I gripped my hands around the cool metal rails. I pressed my feet hard against their outer edges. Then I slid as fast as I could. I kept my eyes up as I soared down, wind whipping at me through the tunnel.

Slitted eyes peered over the edge. Then the demon jumped, hurling down at me with his arms out wide, like a free diver off a cliff. There was nowhere to go. I braced for impact.

He slammed into me like a bag of bricks.
 

My grip gave, and I fell, with him clutching me. A rush of wind stung my face. The ground was closer and closer. Tears filled my eyes.

The demon took my chin in his hand and jerked my head to face him. His eyes were pure red, with razor-thin black slits through the middle. They were storming, swallowing me. I tried to turn my face away, but his grip was iron. I was going to die, and those terrible eyes would be the last thing I’d see. Then I remembered to close my eyes.

Thank you, God
, I prayed.
It’s been a good run. I go to your arms
.
Protect Naomi, protect—

As I continued, I felt peace. Every fiber in me released.
 

Then I landed. Like a feather.

The vice grip on my chin was gone. I opened my eyes. The radiant face of a woman was peering down at me. I realized I was in her arms.
 

Had she caught me?
 

“You did well, Elijah.” She smiled. “I’m Laoth.”

“You must go now,” said a man, only his voice sounded like thunder. He was beside the woman. He was huge and armored and glowing like gold, with massive wings behind him. One of his fists clenched the demon’s throat.
 

I knew his face. “Michael!”

He nodded. Laoth set me down on the ground. Against all odds, my knees did not buckle. I looked around me. There were dozens of them. Only Michael wore armor, but the others had the same force and light.
 

Angels.

A hand found mine and squeezed it. “Some of them were locked up,” Naomi said, pulling me into her arms. “It’s okay now. Michael came as soon as the flare hit. He broke the prison walls. Don’s guards were no match, especially once the power went down.”

“Flare?” I tried to make sense of it all. “What do you mean?”
 

“A solar flare, a flash from the sun. It slammed into earth with a huge electromagnetic pulse. It wiped out everything with electricity or a chip. Precepts, batteries, Babylon—all gone.”

I could barely get my head around this. What would happen to the androids? To all the people in those capsules along the towers? I remembered the words of the demon who’d attacked me—
the Master will bring him here
. I pointed at the demon’s motionless body in Michael’s grip. “I don’t think the power will stay off for long. He said Don will be back.”

“Malphas knows nothing,” Michael said. “The day of the Lord comes soon, but more still must be tested, more must be saved. We will engage Lucifer’s minions until then. He will go after the child.” The angel, with one hand still clamping the demon’s throat, looked at the baby. Naomi wore it swaddled against her chest. “We will hold Malphas and the others here. You go now.” He turned to Laoth. “Gabriel has secured the way. Take Dumah and Cassiel.”

Laoth nodded and looked to Naomi and me. “Follow me.”